Last Days of Slow Rhythms

This week I was acutely aware of the countdown to school. I will lose my natural sleep rhythms. Gone will be the days of waking at a decent hour, and staying up until midnight. Gone will be the possibilities of poached eggs on toast or a quick smoothie for lunch. No more morning walks. No more afternoons listening to podcasts while I knit, or hours spent reading.

Nope. All will be back to structured time when I will have to decide which to do with my non-working time--walk, read, or knit. I rarely get to two in a day, and almost never all three. But it will be good to work with students again. So good!!

We are only opening online, which is no way to do school, but is better than the risk of face-to-face with teenagers.

This week a sweater has seemed to be flying off my needles! It is the Harebell cardigan that I have wanted to make for so long. I wanted to make it in the Cherries color, but the yarn is on closeout (Already?! I think. But then, that tells you how long I've had this on my wish list) and so I went with this rust color--which could also be a sort of cherry color--like dark Washington cherries.

I made a gauge swatch. I always make a gauge swatch for a sweater. Always. The bigger swatch here is using the needle size from the pattern, and the smaller swatch is the one I made using a smaller size needle to get the correct gauge. Even though there is only a half size difference in the needles, you can see that the swatches are very different, even though there is just that little bit of difference.

And here is the sweater! I am so excited about it. I really, really hope it fits well.

I've also been harvesting load after load of tomatoes. When I ordered these, they came in a packet of four. Two plants up near the house yielded four total tomatoes--all from one plant. The two plants back away from the house have grown in gigantic, uncontrollable monsters, full full full of tomatoes.
Next year, I plan not to piddle with the area nearer the house and enlarge the back area.

In the night, some creature--probably a possum or raccoon eats the ripe tomatoes. He waits for them to get ripe, just like I do, then eats it. So, I've started picking these about one day early just to outwit him. Although, there are so many tomatoes, there are enough for him too!

Pumpkins sprung up in our natural mulch pile where I threw the Halloween pumpkin carcasses. We had a great little patch going and lots of blooms and several ripening pumpkins.  However, the leaves began to wilt and I noticed one pumpkin was getting a hole and had a rotting looking stem vine. This could only be one thing--a boring insect larvae from a type of squash bug. Rrrr! So, I ended up cutting all three of the lovely growing pumpkins, figuring to get them before the insects. One is pretty much a goner. I poked open his hole and dug out four or five feasting larvae (yuck!), them left him outside by the gate. The other two I brought into the house, hoping that if they keep cool enough in the air conditioning they might hang on til October. Maybe.

We've been eating what we can from our garden and from the local farmer's market. Lots of delicious eggplant!

Our crazy blooming flowers are slowing down a little, starting to look tired. I cut back a hydrangea, hoping I've cut it right and at the right time so that next year it will bloom again. The cut blossoms get very dry and keep their shape and don't need any water after the initial drink you give them right after cutting. I have discovered that this works best after they have finished their pollination stage which is when they are at the top of their color. You have to wait for them to fade a little.

 I hope the next week goes well for you all.